Cue the Love
by youandmeotp
Summary: PERMANENT HIATUS - Bechloe AU. Beca and Chloe are freshman theatre students at Barden University. They become roommates and start falling for each other, but there is one big obstacle: neither of them can tell what the other is really feeling. The problem with actors is that they're so damn good at acting. [Disclaimer: I do not own Pitch Perfect.] [Triple Treble along the way :)]
1. New Year, New School

**A/N: I don't have anything to say but I want to consistently have author's notes sooo...take this *thrusts Bechloe at you***

New year, new school. Beca was all too familiar with that way of life. She hadn't been registered at the same school for more than one year since she was eight years old. This was due to her father's job: he was an author. Writing is an occupation that doesn't, in fact, require you to move around that much, but it gave him an insatiable sense of wanderlust. With Beca and her dad being a family of their own, it was pretty easy to pick up everything and relocate to another city. So Beca found herself being dragged off on a "new adventure" with him come every August. It had never been hard for her to start anew.

New year, new school. Chloe had no concept of this at all. When she was five years old, her parents sent her to private school. She had attended that very school until her graduation that past June, with the same 70 kids she'd grown up with. Her parents had lived in the same house for 25 years now, and it was all she knew. She had never even been on vacation without them and her brother. Now, she was the first Beale child to leave the nest, and she had no idea what to expect. She was out there on her own, in Atlanta all alone. She had almost forgotten how to meet new people.

When Beca and Chloe came face to face in their dormitory, they didn't know what to make of each other.

"Hi," Chloe greeted the alternative-looking girl.

Beca squinted her heavily lined eyes at the brightness of the redhead's pearly white smile. Those blue eyes seemed too clear, too innocent to be real. What was this majestic creature standing in front of her? "Hi," Beca responded.

"You must be Beca," continued Chloe, setting down her duffel bag on the bed unclaimed by her new roommate. "I'm Chloe." She extended a manicured hand and Beca took it hesitantly.

"Pleasure," she said dryly.

Chloe felt her heartbeat quicken, and her palms started to sweat. She wiped them hastily on her blue dress. This was not going well. She'd practiced this conversation so many times in her head on the bus ride here, but this girl didn't seem to be receptive to anything she said. She searched for something she could use to connect them.

Then she noticed it. A small inscription on the inside of Beca's arm. "Oh my gosh, you have a bug tattoo? I have a bug tattoo!" Chloe squealed, flashing Beca her right wrist. Sure enough, there was a tiny red ladybug inked there, to complement Beca's grasshopper.

Beca raised an eyebrow, impressed that this girl, who looked so sheltered, was daring enough to go under the needle. "That's…pretty sweet," she admitted.

"Thanks!" Chloe grinned again, reassured that she and Beca would get along well. "I got it in July for my eighteenth birthday. How about you?"

"Same, actually, but in March," Beca said.

"Awesome." Chloe's phone started buzzing in her back pocket, and she jumped. She pulled it out and glanced at the number on the screen. "Oh, sorry about that," she said to Beca. "It's my dad making sure I got here all right; I should probably go take this." Beca nodded once. Chloe stepped out into the hallway, then peeked her head back into the room. "Do you wanna, uh, grab lunch later?"

"Sounds great," Beca said. When Chloe was once again out of view, Beca kicked her plaid clad legs up onto the mass of pillows she brought with her and lied back on her bed. Four years in a bed like this was something she could get used to.

* * *

"So, what classes are you taking?" Chloe asked Beca as they each grabbed a slice of pizza.

"Um, let's see…" Beca glanced down at her schedule. "English, Spanish, Multivariable Calculus, Theatre…yeah, that's it for this semester."

"OMG, you're a theatre girl?" Chloe exclaimed. Beca couldn't believe her roommate was someone who said "OMG" in a non-ironic way. "I am too!" continued Chloe. "I would never have pegged you for a theatre girl."

"Well…I am," Beca said with an awkward chuckle.

"You wouldn't happen to be taking the Full Production course, would you?"

Beca glanced down again. "It appears I am."

"Yay!" Chloe now glanced at Beca's schedule. "Looks like we're together."

 _Yay,_ Beca thought sarcastically. Because living with her would _definitely_ not be enough time spent with her.

They sat down at table in the dining hall and each took first bites of their pizza. "Mmm!" Beca mumbled, surprised. "This is really good. The food at my school last year was total shit, though, so I guess it's not hard to beat."

Chloe laughed. "My school had pretty good food," she said with a shrug.

"You're kidding right?" Beca asked incredulously. "Public schools have good food, like, zero percent of the time."

"Didn't go to public school." Chloe smirked. The expression probably should've made her look like a smartass, but it actually just made her look really darling. And that was not a word Beca used to describe people. Ever. A strand of wavy red hair slipped from behind Chloe's ear, and she brushed it over to the other side of her head. She scrunched up her face cutely, and Beca suppressed an eye roll.

"Wow, a private school girl with a tattoo?" Beca said instead. "Impressive."

"Yeah, I guess. My parents wanted me to let go and be myself before I left for school, or something like that."

"Scandalous," Beca said, deadpanning like crazy. Would this be what she was like around Chloe all the time?

"I thought it was, at the time," Chloe said, ripping off another piece of pepperoni with her teeth. "Honestly, though, I've seen a lot more badass people since setting foot in Barden than I did for the last eighteen years." _And that's, like, five,_ Chloe said in her head, not wanting to sound totally lame.

Beca scoffed at this. "I've met a _lot_ of people in my lifetime, and compared to most places I've lived, Georgia is pretty tame."

Chloe raised her eyebrows. "You've lived a lot of places, then?" she assumed.

 _Shit,_ Beca thought. _So much for keeping that to myself. Smooth, Bec._ "Something like that," she said cryptically.

Chloe frowned. "Why won't you tell me anything about yourself, Beca? We're gonna be living together for the next year at least, so we might as well get to know each other."

"All in good time," Beca replied. She went to pick up her pizza again, only to discover she had already taken the last bite without noticing.

Seeing this, Chloe ripped what was left of her slice in half. "Here, take it," she said, thrusting it at Beca.

Beca stared at it for a moment, unsure of how to react. But she took it, eventually. It was a nice gesture, and some damn good pizza. Beca wasn't so used to people being nice to her.

Chloe smiled to herself at the peaceful nomming sounds Beca was making over the slice. Maybe she hadn't forgotten how to meet people, after all.

* * *

After lunch, Chloe had of course wanted to go meet her fellow incoming freshman, true to her newly hatched social butterfly form. So Beca left her to mingle in the dining hall and walked back to her dorm alone. "Hey, gorgeous!" a random guy called. She tried to ignore him, but he jogged after her.

"I'm Jesse," he said to her back. She was having difficulty walking fast enough to shake him off. "Jesse Swanson."

"Uh-huh," Beca said, not slowing down.

Finally, he did catch up, latching onto her right shoulder to pull himself next to her. "You sure are a sight for sore eyes," he said. "Are you a freshman?"

"Uh-huh," Beca repeated.

"Sweet, me too. Those are some really nice ear spikes you have there."

"Thanks," Beca said, trying to convey without saying it that she _really_ wanted him to fuck off.

"So, uh, how would you feel about going out sometime? I can give you my-"

Beca cut Jesse off. "Hey, so you seem to not be getting the message that I'm not interested, so I'll try to make it more clear: I'm not interested."

The Jesse guy nodded slowly, deterred. "Well, it was nice meeting you," he said. "Maybe I'll see you around." He jogged off to rejoin his jeering group of pals.

"Goddammit," Beca cursed under her breath. "Why do the guys have to hit on _me?_ "

Beca had never come out as a lesbian to her dad, but she was pretty sure he knew. It was never something they had talked openly about – hell, they didn't really talk about anything these days, with his nose always in a manuscript – but she figured she had been pretty obvious about it. Although she didn't consider herself particularly attractive, she thought she probably would've been able to rein in some boys if she so chose. The fact that she never did said enough.

She figured now, going to college, would be a time where she was very likely to lose that side of herself, and she didn't want that to happen. It was all too easy for her, a girl who loved nothing more than acting, to put on a false persona and fake her way through the year with some sleazy guys by her side. But at Barden, she really wanted to be herself. And it was turning out to be really hard.

She could tell Chloe, of course. It wasn't too late to ditch the mysteriousness and be a real human being. But she didn't think she would. Throughout their conversations that day, Beca had found out that Chloe was Alabama born and raised. That was even worse than Georgia when it came to LGBT recognition. Beca decided to save herself and her new acquaintance from that discussion.

Upon arrival back at Baker Hall, where her dorm was (or at least she thought it was), Beca found herself completely disoriented and discombobulated. She stared at the door for a moment, thinking that it didn't look like the door she'd gone through when she got there that morning. She didn't really have a better idea than to walk through it, though, and she had already been making friends with this door for far longer than a normal person would. So she entered.

Beca stepped into a room that looked a whole lot like the common area near her dorm, but she was pretty sure it wasn't. She wasn't one for recognizing people, at least not yet, but she recognized the furniture. She'd definitely vegged out on a blue couch earlier. These couches were all green.

She then realized that all ten pairs of eyes occupying this common area were on her. Beca froze. She hated having groups of people focused on her and only her. This was why she always rigged her play auditions so she wouldn't end up with a role involving a solo. "Uhh," Beca said.

A blonde girl stood up from her seat on the couch. She seemed to be the main attraction of the group, or at least she presented herself that way. "Are you a freshman?" she asked kindly. Beca nodded nervously. "I'm Aubrey Posen, and I'm a junior. You are?"

"Beca," Beca replied. _Goddammit, why does everyone want to meet me today?_

"I'll help you find your dorm. Assuming that's what you're looking for," she said. Beca nodded again. "Back in a flash, guys," she said to the other girls gathered around her. They all looked pretty lost when she stepped out of the circle.

As Aubrey guided Beca back out of her favorite door, she inquired, "You wouldn't happen to be Beca Mitchell, would you?"

Beca was taken aback. "I might be," she replied. She was still trying to get over the overwhelming sense of authority the blonde exuded, so the words came out sounding less cocky than genuinely confused. The point got across, though.

"I think I saw your name on my class list. Full Prod?" Beca was once again reduced to nodding. "I'm the TA. Welcome! Also, no, I don't actually live in that dorm, I was just hanging out with some of my new students. They're all really cool, you'll meet them this week. The dorms are cool, too, but after last year I figured moving out and getting a place of my own was best for me."

"Do you live by yourself?" Beca asked. She was normally not one to inquire about anyone's personal business to any extent, but she wanted to keep the conversation off herself as much as possible.

"At the moment I do, but sooner or later I'll be drowning in rent, so I'm looking to find a roommate or two to share the load." Beca didn't know how to continue the conversation from there, but Aubrey saved her. "And you have a roommate, I assume?"

"Oh, yeah, yes," Beca jumped in. "Her name's Chloe. Chloe Beale, I think? She's in our class, too. Very…happy."

Aubrey looked amused, lifting her perfectly shaped eyebrows. "You say happy like it's a bad thing."

Beca only shrugged. "Sometimes. Sometimes not."

They had arrived at the correct dorm, which turned out to be a building around the corner from the one Beca had entered, and out of sight a little ways down the hill. Aubrey stood there looking at Beca, and Beca stood there looking at Aubrey. Aubrey pursed her perfect lips, which were painted hot pink to match her smart-looking collared dress, as if she were waiting for Beca to do something. Beca couldn't help but stare at them. Finally Aubrey gestured at the scanner to the right of Beca. "You need to swipe your key," she informed her.

"Ah." Beca nodded once, shaking herself out of her trance, dismayed that she once again looked like an idiot, and swished her key card by the sensor. The little machine let out one high pitched beep, and the light turned green. Upon hearing the door click unlocked, Aubrey opened it and allowed Beca inside.

"It was nice meeting you, Beca," Aubrey said, not following Beca through the door. "I'll see you on Wednesday, okay? And you're always welcome to come hang out with us theatre nerds in Flynn Hall."

Beca gave a little half smile at this. As much as she wanted to be aloof, it was always nice to be welcome. That had only happened on the first day at like…two out of the ten schools she had attended. "Thanks…Aubrey, was it?" she said.

"Mhmm. You can call me Bree, if you want, though."

"Cool," said Beca. "See you around, Bree."

"You too."

* * *

After an hour or two of Beca lying on her bed and messing around on her laptop, Chloe knocked on the door. Beca heard her say goodbye to a new friend outside. "Come in!" Beca shouted. Chloe came in.

"Hey, Becs," she greeted Beca.

"People don't c- oh, oh well."

"Whatcha been up to?" She plopped down on Beca's bed in front of her, legs crisscross applesauce, eyes earnestly wide. Beca was wary. This girl seemed genuinely interested on the nothing Beca had been doing for the afternoon. With a bite of her lip, she evaluated whether this was real, or really good acting.

"Nothing," she said at first.

"Oh, come on. You had to have been doing something."

 _This couldn't be acting,_ Beca thought. _There's no sign of falsity in her eyes. I can't even do that, and I've been faking everything for the past ten years, practically._ So she answered. "I got lost after lunch, and ended up at the wrong dorm, but I met our exceptionally beautiful drama TA, Aubrey." _Exceptionally beautiful? Beca, what are you doing?_

"That's cool. I like the name Aubrey." Beca nodded in agreement. Chloe continued, "I met a girl named Stacie, who's also in our drama class. She's, like, supermodel tall. It's funny, we keep running into people from theatre, but not any other class. We must be drawn to each other or something. Ha ha ha!"

"Ha ha ha," said Beca, wishing the redhead would relocate to anywhere besides her bed. But it just got worse.

Chloe scooted up and lied down beside Beca. They were both staring at the ceiling, which didn't make Beca too uncomfortable. Then Chloe turned her head so her mouth was fractions of an inch from Beca's face. "You know, I'm _so_ glad we became roommates. I think that we're gonna be really fast friends."

"I'm sure," Beca said, scooting a few inches over until her body was flush with the wall. She could feel Chloe's silky hair brush her skin as she nodded enthusiastically. Today was a day of excessive nodding for everyone, so it appeared.

Just as fast as Chloe lied down, she sat back up again. She had as much energy as a six year old. "So what do you want to do now?" she asked.

Beca groaned. "Do we have to _do_ something? I was thoroughly enjoying my time here on my bed."

"Well…do you want to stay here and bond?"

Beca scowled, but luckily Chloe couldn't see her, since her face was to the wall. She knew she couldn't hold back from Chloe forever. It was weird – she'd been able to avoid any of her past school friends knowing overly much about her for a whole school year. Chloe's vibe made it impossible to last more than a day. That was unsettling, to say the least.

Chloe wondered what Beca was thinking about after she asked the question. She herself wasn't sure what she could expecting from an evening of bonding with Beca. It could be a lot of her babbling and Beca giving one word responses, an awkward silence, and repeat. But she was intrigued by the dark and elusive girl. Maybe she wouldn't totally fill the hole left by her friends of 13 years from back home, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

Beca came to the same conclusion: it wouldn't hurt to try. "Sure," she responded, albeit indifferently. "Let's bond."

"Awesome!" said Chloe, bouncing up and down, again reminiscent of a six year old. Beca knew she was in for a long night, but she couldn't help but smile. Yes, she decided, she could get used to a place like this.


	2. At Home on the Stage

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, y'all. Hopefully this is satisfactory :)**

Chloe thought their bonding night had gone well. Not _too_ well: they weren't suddenly best friends after one night of talking, of course, but she felt like Beca had opened up to her a little more. Chloe tried not to admit to herself that most of that openness had resulted from the two of them sharing a whole bottle of vodka, per Beca's insistence. Chloe never drank, but just this one time, she'd thought, it wouldn't be that much of a crime.

She was headed to class now, which wasn't exciting enough to talk about. Beca was still asleep on top of her made bed, since she didn't have any classes today. Chloe released a big yawn and realized that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea only to drink on the nights when she didn't have a class the next day. Her 9am class was going to be pretty rough, considering Beca hadn't let her sleep until 4. Who would've thought she would be the one who wanted to keep talking all night long?

While Chloe was in class, Beca fell out of bed. She had never been a graceful sleeper, which was part of the reason she had always slept on a mattress on the floor. She awoke to searing pain in her shoulder, and cursed under her breath. Her vision was blurry and black in spots as she sat up, and she rubbed her head. She had a blaring headache, having forgotten that she was too tiny to efficiently break down all the alcohol she had ingested the previous night. Or was it this morning? She didn't even know anymore.

She looked around the room when her vision cleared. Chloe was gone. Beca pushed herself off the ground and spotted a hot pink Post-It note on her bedside table. She read it out loud to herself. "Went to Russian. Be back by 10:30. –C." Beca scoffed at Chloe's choice of Post-It color, and at the fact that she even had Post-It notes already. The only useful things Beca had right now were pillows, which were thankfully versatile for both dorm life and class.

Beca checked the time on her phone. It was already 10:15. She decided it would be a good refresher to spend the 15 minutes before her roommate's return taking a shower. So she gathered all her stuff into a little basket and headed for the showers, humming to herself.

Beca was admittedly a little apprehensive about this community showers. Although they had separate stalls, there were still a whole lot of strangers around. She wasn't particularly confident about her body, and she didn't know if she could deal with anyone seeing everything there was to see at this point. Luckily, there ended up being no walk-ins or anything. She was safe, and no one even made any snarky comments about her singing voice. The shower had gone off without a hitch, except for one thing, which Beca only realized once she turned off the water.

She had forgotten to bring a change of clothes.

Now, of course, this wouldn't normally have been a problem. Any person in their right mind would have simply pulled their pajamas back on and headed down the hallway like that. But Beca was not in her right mind. Although the shower had felt good, her head was still throbbing, and she couldn't think straight. Therefore, the conclusion she came to was that she should wrap herself in her towel and make her way back to her dorm that way.

So Beca clutched the knot in her towel with one hand and her shower basket with the other, and, shivering, started the trek all the way down to the end of the hallway. She heard a door open behind her, but she didn't look back, and they didn't say anything to her. Another door. Then the stairwell door. It was Chloe.

"Beca?" she said when she saw her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going back to the dorm," Beca explained. "I didn't have any clothes."

Chloe looked confused. "You're literally carrying clothes right now."

Beca looked down at her basket, where her pajamas were crumpled up. "Fuck," she said. Chloe unlocked their door and let the dripping Beca go in first, rubbing her foot through the trail of water she left to dissipate it.

Chloe set down the two Starbucks cups she'd brought in. "Do you need any help?" she asked Beca.

"Nah, I'm good," Beca replied. She started looking through one of her boxes to find a t-shirt and jeans, which wasn't very hard, since those articles of clothing made up 90% of what she'd brought with her. "Okay, I'm gonna change now, don't look."

Chloe, not registering what Beca had said fast enough, turned to look at Beca right at that moment. She was faced with the back side of Beca's pale body. "Oh! Oh. Sorry," she stammered, averting her eyes.

"Dude!" Beca exclaimed. "Not cool." So much for her big plan of not being seen naked. But, she supposed, the back was better than the front.

Chloe winced. "I know, I know, my bad."

Beca pulled on her clothes as fast as possible to avoid any more shame. She threw her towel at the hook on the back of their door and hit it straight on. She then noticed the lovely smell filling up the room – or what normally would've been a lovely smell, had her head not been pulsing abnormally.

"I brought coffee," said Chloe. "I didn't know what you liked, so I got it black. But I also picked up a bunch of creams and sugars just in case." She handed Beca one of the cups and made sure it was securely in her hand before letting go.

"I actually do take it black," Beca said, sniffing at the coffee and going a little woozy. "But thanks. I'm sure we'll need those creams and sugars at some point. You can throw them in the fridge." Beca jerked her head towards the mini fridge she'd bought before coming here, and Chloe put the fixings neatly inside. "How about you?" Beca asked. "What did you get?"

"Cinnamon Dolce Latte," Chloe responded. "13 percent of the calories are from sugar and I no longer care. I'm living life!"

"Mmph, too loud for this early in the morning," Beca groaned, pressing the coffee cup to her forehead. It occurred to Beca how much Chloe reminded her of cinnamon. Sweet, but not so much that it was overbearing. Warm for sure. Kind of like cuddles. Beca would never admit it, but she always liked a good cuddle.

"Oops, sorry," said Chloe, only slightly quieter. "Russian class really encourages loudness, you know?"

"And also vodka, right?" Beca joked, forcing out a tiny laugh.

"I'm sure they wouldn't frown upon it," Chloe said with a smile. _Again with the bright smile,_ Beca thought. _Does she want me to go blind or something?_

Beca took a sip of her black coffee and it hit her like a shot. She started blinking rapidly from the intake of caffeine – or maybe just from the first intake of something other than liquor in the past 12 hours. Chloe smiled fondly at the brunette's instinctive reaction, taking a sip of her own cozy drink.

"Are you sure I can't do anything for you?" Chloe asked Beca. She looked truly horrible, which was funny, since she was the one who had brought the vodka under the pretense that she was a regular social drinker. "Massage, cuddle, water…" she trailed off.

"I would ask for a massage, but I think you've seen enough of that part of my body for today," Beca joked.

Chloe shrugged. "You can keep your shirt on. It's pretty thin, so it won't be in the way."

Beca considered this. Her shoulder was now aching as much as her head, the shower's effects having worn off. "Yeah, okay then," she finally said. "Not for too long, though. I'm sure you have better things to do than give your hungover roommate a massage."

"Eh," said Chloe. Beca lied down flat on her stomach, head to the side, and Chloe moved in so she was on top of Beca. Beca couldn't help thinking that she never intended to get this close to anyone within so little time knowing them. But Chloe's hands kneading her upper back made the inhibitions float away.

* * *

A couple of days later – Beca didn't really have any idea how many – Chloe dragged Beca out of bed to go to full prod. Chloe had noticed that Beca wasn't really one to go out and do anything unless someone else pulled her alone. She remembered a law of physics she'd had a lecture about earlier in the week: an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Chloe supposed she was going to have to be the unbalanced force.

Once Beca was ready and awake, and had downed two of those little creamers Chloe had brought back the other day, she found she was kind of looking forward to going to theatre. After all, she had already met Aubrey, and Chloe had met Stacie, so it probably wouldn't be all that awkward. Beca had a tendency to make things awkward when they didn't need to be, though, so she was kind of apprehensive.

"It'll be fine!" Chloe said, bouncing along the brick path and pulling Beca along by the arm. "You love acting, right? So how bad could it be?"

Beca realized this was probably true. She'd been enrolled in a theatre class every year since the moving started. It had been the number one constant in her ever changing life. It had kept her from going crazy, in a way. That was a thing she probably ought to keep doing.

When the two of them arrived at the auditorium, which was bigger than any either of them had ever gotten to perform in, by the way, they were immediately greeted by Aubrey at the door. "Welcome to your first full production class!" she said cheerily. Beca figured she would be a good match for Chloe; they were both _way_ too energetic for this time of day. "Oh, Beca, it's you."

Beca smiled at being acknowledged. "Hey, Bree," she replied.

To Chloe, Aubrey extended a hand, saying, "I'm Aubrey, and I'll be your TA this semester."

"Chloe," Chloe said, accepting the handshake. She nodded very coolly. Beca envied her coolness.

"Nice to meet you." Beca was once again entranced by Aubrey's charisma. She'd never really felt anything like it before, but her brain was trying to take in every single movement Aubrey made and store it in her memory. She knew Aubrey had just finished saying something or other, and she felt Chloe nudging her arm. Beca blinked herself back into reality and let Chloe lead her down to the front row of the house.

"What the hell was that?" Chloe asked. The word "hell" felt unnatural on her tongue, but it seemed fitting. She was going to learn to be more of an adult in college, and cursing was a natural place to start (after casual drinking, of course).

"What are you talking about?" Beca asked, wrinkling her eyebrows as if she was completely oblivious to her blank out back there.

Chloe sighed. "Never mind. It was nothing." The thing was, Chloe had been enjoying the single life for as long as she could remember. And by enjoying, she really meant enjoying. In high school, she'd had all she needed in her group of friends. The thing that bothered her, though, was that every time one of her best friends got a boyfriend, they would suddenly become way more distant. She'd even stopped hanging out with some of them altogether because of it.

Chloe suspected her gaydar was on point in this instance. It was a weird skill she'd developed, seeing as where she came from, maybe 7% of the gay people had dared to be out. She herself wasn't into girls, but she had no doubt in her mind that Beca was. And she wanted to make sure she didn't lose Beca so early on in their friendship. Chloe wanted to have single friends who would go out and party hard with her. Or something like that.

Beca brushed some hair over her face to cover up her blushing. Beca wanted to come off as badass and also still remarkably talented. She still had the talent, but it was so not badass to blush. Especially not about a girl.

"Hello, everyone!" a sharp voice rang out through the auditorium, stopping everyone in their tracks. Beca looked up to see who she supposed was their professor. "I am Professor Miranda Halen, and I will be guiding you through your production this semester. I want to get into the nitty gritty of the show as soon as possible, so today we will be singing. Everyone up on the stage."

Beca followed Chloe's footsteps up onto the humongous stage, realizing that she'd been trailing Chloe like a puppy all morning long. Beca was no puppy. She felt at home right away on this stage, but she noticed Chloe swaying uneasily from foot to foot when they stood in a line. No doubt Chloe's little private school drama department had never prepared her for this. To be fair, Beca's schools did little to prepare her either, but she felt as if she was born ready for this moment.

Halen paced back and forth in front of the group, assessing each one of them for looks, confidence…who knew what else? Beca stood up straight as she'd always been taught to do onstage. It made her look not so tiny.

Chloe noticed that it was about an even split between boys and girls, which was a pleasant change from the demography of high school shows. She wasn't nearly as self-assured as Beca was right then, which kind of threw her off her game. Chloe Beale wasn't afraid of anything, or at least not that she could think of off the top of her head. So why was she so nervous to sing in front of these people she didn't even know?

Halen's silver hair was tied up in a pristine twist on the back of her head that didn't move when she walked. It was a weird phenomenon, and kind of unnerving, for the people who weren't already scared out of their minds. It was like their professor wasn't even a real person, just a hologram gliding back and forth on the stage robotically. Finally, she extended a long, slender finger, and pointed at a girl with long brown hair. "You," she said. "Show us what you've got."

The girl stepped forward, and the rest of us sat down on the stage. She introduced herself. "Hi everybody, my name is Stacie. My hobbies include cuticle care and e-network." So this was the girl Chloe had told Beca about. She was definitely…tall.

Stacie graced everyone with a rendition of "Gimme Gimme" from some show from a few years ago, which was really, really good. She was singing, "Gimme gimme that thing called love," but to Beca at least it sure looked like she was after something else. Chloe was just thinking that she didn't know what she wanted to sing and Halen better not pick her soon. Except the more people they went through, the fewer songs she would have to choose from. When Stacie was done, she nodded her head graciously and sat down with the rest of us.

Halen was quick to pick her next victim. "You," she said, forming her word carefully with her mouth. She was pointing to Beca.

"Good luck," Chloe whispered, touching Beca's arm encouragingly as she stood up. Beca knew she didn't need luck.

"Hello, I'm Beca Mitchell, and I will be singing 'Still Hurting' from 'The Last Five Years.'" She'd seen that musical in…God, she didn't even know what year anymore. But this song had stuck with her ever since then.

Chloe leaned back on her hands as Beca took the stage. "Jamie is over and Jamie is gone / Jamie's decided it's time to move on / Jamie has new dreams he's building upon / And I'm still hurting," Beca began. Chloe raised her eyebrows in surprise. She hadn't even pegged Beca for being a theatre girl at all when they first met, and yet this? This was amazing. Beca completely transformed herself into a raw, vulnerable, exposed woman suffering through heartbreak. Chloe could tell all this purely from her voice and the way she moved. Singing in character was something she herself had never been great at, but Beca embodied her character. And Chloe hadn't even seen this show before!

When Beca sat back down beside her, Chloe leaned in and whispered, "Dude, that was awesome! That song was beautiful."

Beca half-smiled. "Thanks. Means a lot." She didn't have the heart to tell Chloe, smiley and perky as she was, that that song rang almost too close to home for her to explain.


End file.
